


Brothers

by lupotterwrites



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Thunderbirds - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupotterwrites/pseuds/lupotterwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An August heatwave on Tracy Island results in sleepless nights and all round idiocy for the Tracy boys.</p>
<p>(another one I wrote for #virgiltracyweek over on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers

_Whump. Whump. Whump._ **  
**

Virgil’s dark eyes moved in circles as they followed the lazy rotation of the ceiling fan positioned above him. Round and round the fan blades went. Round and around and around. For all the good that that did.

_Whump. Whump. Whump._

He’d been at this now for ten minutes straight, ever since he had given up on even attempting to get back to sleep. It was simply too hot. The first few weeks in August were always warm on Tracy Island, but this year the temperatures had climbed to dizzying heights. Even Virgil, who was of the “anytime, anywhere” variety of sleepers, had been defeated by it.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his side, the springs in his mattress creaking as he did so. Flailing blindly with his left hand, he managed to scoop up the small alarm clock that sat next to his bed. Virgil scrunched his eyes up in an attempt to focus them before starring at the numbers on the digital display.

6:57 am.

Groaning again, but with a note of genuine anguish this time, Virgil rolled back the way he’d come, flinging the alarm clock across the room in disgust. 6:57 am and wide-awake. On a day off, no less. Of course, this predicament could have been avoided if his father had installed air conditioning when the villa was being built, but the elder Tracy’s environmental concerns had stopped that from happening. Now they were left to contend with the consequences. Namely, sweat, heat rashes, sweat, disturbed sleep, and yet more sweat.

Groaning for a third time, Virgil swung his legs over the side of his mattress. There was no use in crying over non-existent air con. He was awake now; he may as well get up. In one fluid motion - surprisingly graceful for a man of his size - he got out of bed, bringing the sheets that were stuck to his back with him. After languidly swatting the sheets away, he made his way to his bedroom door. Out on the landing, he paused for a moment to yawn and readjust his boxer shorts before striding purposefully down the stairs. There was only one place to go on Tracy Island when it was this hot. The pool.

The glass doors rattled slightly in their rails as Virgil slid them open and stepped outside onto the balcony, the smooth stone warm beneath his feet. As he reached the winding staircase that led down to the pool, he took a moment to take in the vista before him. Over a year and a half on the island and the view still managed to take his breath away on a daily basis. Whilst it was still early, the sun, blazing and white, was already climbing high in the sky; its harsh light refracting off of the waves to create a sea of innumerable tiny diamonds, stretching to the horizon.

As he made his descent down the stairs, Virgil’s eye was drawn to a dark shape by the pool. He lifted a large hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun, to try and better make out what it was. He couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly as the shape’s identity was revealed; John, perched like a gargoyle on a garden chair as he scribbled furiously in a moth-eaten notebook. Around him, the patio was littered with academic detritus; a veritable mountain of haphazardly arranged books and coffee cups.

As his younger brother approached, John suddenly stopped his urgent scribbling, his writing hand all but frozen in mid air. Slowly, he raised his head to peer over the rim of his sunglasses, his dark blue eyes blinking rapidly as they adjusted to the light.

“ ** _Hullo, Virgil_** ,” he said brightly, a gentle smile forming on his lips. “ ** _It’s not like you to be up this early… I know this is an extremely stupid question to ask, but I’m going to do it anyway._** ” John paused, sighing slightly for dramatic effect. “ ** _Trouble sleeping?_** ”

“ ** _Gosh, John. No wonder you did so well at Harvard._** ” Virgil grinned widely - a smile John returned - before flopping backwards onto the nearest sun lounger. He wriggled his broad shoulders, trying to get comfy, before turning back to John. “ ** _You too?_** ”

John put down his pen and nodded sadly in reply. “ ** _I can’t stand this weather,_** ” he sighed. John was naturally almost as pale as a person could be, and his extended periods in space had only made his sensitivity to the sun worse. The risk of sunburn and heat stroke was a very real problem for him when he was back home. “ ** _It’s at times like this I almost prefer being up in my tin can than down here. At least there’s climate control up there…_** ” John continued, a wistful look on his face.

Suddenly, John gulped loudly. He turned to Virgil, his face stricken with panic. “ ** _N-not that I don’t love being down here with you guys!_** ” he garbled. “ ** _That’s not what I meant! I just- I’m sorry!_** ”

Virgil wafted his hands nonchalantly in reply. “ ** _No apologies needed, Johnny. To be honest, I was thinking of asking you to take me with you… If only to get away from this heat, and the gruesome twosome._** ”

John sighed with relief, his narrow shoulders drooping as he relaxed. He fixed Virgil with a weary smile. “ ** _Does it make you a bad person if you want to throttle your little brothers on occasion?_** ”

“ ** _If it does, then we’re both bad people, John._** ”

John had ostensibly come down to celebrate Virgil’s birthday, with Brains left monitoring the comm up in space. In truth, there had not been much to monitor. International Rescue had not received a call in over three weeks now. Not that that was a bad thing in itself, but since the festivities for Virgil’s birthday had wound down, there had been no real distractions. Consequently, life with the youngest Tracy brothers - Gordon and Alan - was bordering on nightmarish. Even Virgil was at the end of his tether, and he had no idea how John - who was valiantly trying to write an essay for a highbrow academic journal - had been able to survive the loud games of Mario Kart at two in the morning, the achingly unfunny inside jokes bounced back and forth over the breakfast table, and the violent, week-long debate over ‘who would win in a fight; a gorilla or a polar bear?’

The brothers smiled at each other, John obviously glad that he had at least one ally, then sat in silence simply enjoying each other’s company. After a while, Virgil wriggled back further into the sun lounger and closed his eyes. Out here in the open, the heat wasn’t so bad, he guessed. And the scratching of John’s pen was actually surprisingly soothing. Before long, he was fast asleep.

After what seemed like mere seconds (but was in reality closer to two hours), Virgil sat up with a jolt. Some horrendously jarring high pitched cacophony of sound had cut through his dreams and forced him awake. The noise, whatever it was, was somewhere between a pack of hyenas and an axle grinder, and it did not take long for Virgil to find the source of it.

Alan and Gordon had materialised at the side of pool and were in hysterics to the point that neither of them could stand up without the other’s support. Behind them stood Scott, who could normally be relied upon to keep a straight face, but whatever the others were laughing at had broken through his stoicism. If Scott was laughing… Virgil followed their gaze to see what was just so funny.

It was John.

Whilst Virgil had been asleep, his elder brother had obviously taken more and more drastic measures to protect himself from the sun’s rays. Perched on top of John’s head was a straw hat with the widest brim Virgil had ever seen.  On the bridge of his thin nose and across his cheekbones, he’d caked on thick streaks of sunblock, the whiteness of which jarred weirdly with the large, dark sunglasses he was wearing. Across his bony shoulders he had draped the ugliest poncho in existence; a poncho that only Grandma Tracy could love.

Virgil was on the edge of laughing himself until he clocked the expression on his brother’s face. John was furious. Eyes narrowed dangerously, mouth set in a firm line, John set down his notebook and pencil. “ ** _And what’s so damn funny, hey?_** ” he all but hissed.

Alan and Gordon were at a point beyond rational thought, so it fell to Scott to reply. He took a deep breath before responding in his best ‘reasonable big brother’ voice. “ ** _I’m sorry, Johnny_** ,” he said, ** _“but you do look pretty ridiculous. A bit like Grandma’s sister. Auntie Nadine. You remember? The one with the cataracts glasses?_** ”

This was too much for Alan and Gordon who all but collapsed on one another in fresh peels of laughter. Virgil, still safely ensconced on his sun lounger, held his breath. Physically, John was weaker than the rest of his brothers, but you ignored his razor sharp brain at your peril. Scott was playing a dangerous game here, one that - judging by the look of sheer fury on John’s face - he was about to lose.

“ ** _I don’t know what you’re laughing at, Scott!_** ” John retorted, his voice cutting through Alan and Gordon’s laughter like a knife. “ ** _You burn just as easily as I do!_** ”

That was it, thought Virgil. The _coup de grace_. The fact that Alan and Gordon’s laughter had died down was proof enough. A statement like that was for them akin to blood in the water for hungry sharks.

“ ** _Pffttttt! No, I don’t!_** ” Scott scoffed, obviously unaware of the trap he was walking in to.

“ ** _Yes. Yes, you do,_** ” John said, thin eyebrows arched knowingly. Virgil could see that he was about to go in for the kill. “ ** _You’re practically translucent_**.” That did it.

“ ** _John does have a point, y’know, Scotty…_** ” Gordon swaggered towards his big brother and laid a hand on his shoulder. “ ** _If it weren’t for that ridiculous rug that you insist on carrying around on your chest, you’d reflect sunlight._** ” Scott looked down at his chest, nonplussed, as Alan began to snigger. Gordon, now in full flow, carried on, his voice utterly level. “ ** _We - your poor innocent brothers - would be blinded right now if it weren’t for that luscious ‘v’ of hair. Thank you, chest rug. Praise be to the chest rug_**.” Scott could only gape as Gordon, then Alan, begun to bow down, praising his chest hair in hallowed tones.

It didn’t stop there, though.

“ ** _R-r-remember that summer two years ago?_** ” Alan piped up, the giggles already starting to kick in. “ ** _When we were visiting grandma? And Scott fell asleep on her sun lounger?_** ”

“ ** _Oh, c’mon, fellas… It wasn’t that bad…_** ” Scott replied, trying to sound nonchalant and utterly failing.

“ ** _Wasn’t that bad?!_** ” Gordon squawked in disbelief. “ ** _The soles of your feet were burnt, Scott. The soles of your feet. Dad had to get you signed off of work! We had to get grandpa’s wheelchair out of the barn for you!_** ” Behind him, Alan started miming using a wheelchair, complete with squeaky wheel noises.

Virgil had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. As Scott started to grumble protestations, he flicked his eyes over in the direction of John. Unbelievably, John had started scribbling in his notebook again. As he paused to check a detail in one of his reference books, he peered over at Virgil and winked subtly before carrying on with his work.

Over by the pool, Alan and Gordon were still at it. “ ** _Just face it, Scott. You’re not a bronzed god like me, Virg and Gordon_** ,” purred Alan, hands on hips, a sneer on his lips. “ ** _You’ll just have to sit under an umbrella in the shade there with Princess Elsa._** ” He jerked his head backwards in the direction of John.

“ ** _True, true!_** ” Gordon weighed in. “ ** _If we held you up to a Dulux colour chart, you’d fall somewhere between ‘virgin snow’ and ‘soured cream’… Although you do seem to be turning a rather strong shade of pink, Scott…_** ” Gordon was right. From the base of his neck to the tips of his ears, an angry flush had crept up Scott’s face. If Gordon and Alan knew what was good for them, they would cease and desist, and fast.

Apparently, they didn’t.

“ ** _Yeah, Scott! Maybe you need to cool off!_** ” Alan ran at his elder brother, ready to barge him into the pool. In this instance though, Scott was quicker than Alan. Lightening fast, Scott managed to grab his squirming sibling and drag Alan down with him into the watery depths.

This was all too much for Gordon, who promptly collapsed in a heap at the side of the pool, howling. Bad move. Scott sprung upwards from the water, snatching Gordon’s leg and hauling him into the water, kicking and screaming, the subsequent wave crashing over Virgil and John. From there on, it descended into anarchy.

—————————————————————————————

High up above the pool, Jeff Tracy walked out onto the balcony; a coffee cup clutched in one hand, today’s newspaper in the other. Eyes closed, his chest swelled outwards as he took in a deep breath of that fresh tropical air. Smiling to himself, he lifted his cup to his mouth and took an almighty swig of his coffee… Only to spit it out again a moment later in shock as a fearsome cry of “ ** _FOR GONDOR!_** ” rent the air.

Inside the villa, Tin-Tin, drawn by the scream, rushed towards the balcony only to have Jeff almost walk straight into her. “ ** _Oh! Mr Tracy!_** ” she gasped, shocked. “ ** _I heard shouting! Is everything alright?_** ” Solemnly, Jeff planted both his hands on Tin-Tin’s dainty shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “ ** _Tin-Tin, my dear,_** ” he all but sighed, voice heavy. “ ** _Promise me. Faithfully. Never grow up to be a father._** ” With that, he walked away from her into the dark recesses of his office, shaking his head.

Puzzled by his cryptic remark, Tin-Tin ran out onto the balcony and leant over the balustrade. The scene below was pure carnage. The normally still waters of the pool had been transformed into a raging torrent as John - perched on Scott’s shoulders - launched a furious attack against the team of Alan and Virgil, waving a pool noodle with wild abandon. Gordon - now wearing John’s sun hat - sat on the side of the pool, launching beach balls at his brothers. One found its mark, hitting Alan in the face with a sickening squelch, to roars of approval.

Tin-Tin left the balcony in the same way Jeff had; sighing and shaking her head.


End file.
